Frequent seizure of Indian drug consignments in Europe may force domestic pharmaceutical firms to avoid the European sea routes to destinations in Africa and Latin America, Commerce Secretary G K Pillai said.

Concerned over continuation of the “non-trade barriers” (seizure of drug consignments), Pillai said the Indian firms would have to avoid “European ports and take the goods through some other ports”.

The seizure of drug consignments by European authorities has gained momentum in recent times. In the past few months, four large Indian consignments destined to African countries were seized at European ports ostensibly on allegations of patent violations. [...]

The Freedom of Information Act request (WOB verzoek) filed by Health Action International Europe to the Dutch government in April 3rd has led to the following:

After two notifications of delay in the FOI procedure, HAI finally received a response on the 7th of May. Most of the WOB for information on requests by right holders to customs and notifications of customs to right holders, plus further communications between both these interested parties has been rejected on the basis of commercial confidentiality/confidentiality obligations and 'competition sensitivity'.

The customs authority did give the following information:

There have been 17 seizures by the Dutch authorities in the year 2008 on the basis of EU regulation 1383/2008. Of these 16 came from Indian and one from China and were destined as follows:

[...] The Pirate Party does not directly have any programme related to IP and developing countries, but it says its aim of doing away with the patent system, especially on pharmaceutical products, “would save many, many lives.”

Engström said the industry is “unbelievably immoral” when it does not allow developing countries that can afford to produce the medicines themselves do so. He also said that a reform is needed as more than 80 percent of European pharmaceutical companies’ income comes from the state. He said this is a waste of taxpayers’ money as the state gets little in return. [...]

But, none of that stopped 10 years of being able to tax or ban every shipment of these beans into the US. Even beyond the question of why it took 10 years to dump this patent, you have to wonder how a patent on a bean got approved in the first place.